Now there is always a fall line for ‘Beta’ products and boy does Google love the word beta. Gmail is still in beta after god knows how long. None the less, Google’s new product the chrome is more of a disappointment rather than a ‘wow product’. I have been using Chrome for the past couple of days and the first thing i noticed and probably the only good thing was the amount of real estate available. Only a tool button towards the right houses all your immediate needs and the interface is light and simple – as Googly as ever.

But thats where the excitement stops. For a browser that was released with the sole purpose of bridging the divide between existing browsers and web based ‘applications’ this browser sure has a long way to go. One look at the Google Chrome Googlegroups site will show you just how many seemingly trivial issues are being noticed. While i agree that the product is still in Beta, this is probably not what i expected to see. And yes i faced my own issues before i decided to outright reject the product in its present state.

While the whole world is gawking at the fact that Google Chrome captured 1% (reports with higher numbers are out there too), i believe its just the hardcore fans and those who were intrigued with the product that downloaded it. The real test ,however, would be to see what the market share would be after 4 weeks of being out there.

Being one of the first audiences that were shown the pre production version of the movie Travelling, it would be shame if i were to skip the chance to talk about it. ‘Travelling‘ , a new movie starring Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckart is

A romantic drama about a widower (Eckhart) whose book about coping with loss turns him into a best-selling self-help guru. On a business trip to Seattle, he falls for a woman (Aniston) who attends one of his seminars, only to learn that he hasn’t yet truly confronted his wife’s passing

Now when the invitation to view a movie with JA starring in it arrived, i was thrilled enough to actually venture out to see it. But that however turned out to be a rather big disappointment. Although JA appears in about 60% of the scenes, once the movie ends you cant help but wonder where all the JA presence was? Aaron Eckhart, however, does a pretty good job of projecting his character throughout the entire duration of the movie. But what will most likely strike you is the supporting cast. Dan Fogler who plays the role of Burk Ryan’s (Aaron) agent, and Judy Greer who plays JA’s friend are probably the real reason why you would want to watch the movie. Without their performance this movie would definitely not even be worth afirst look.

Travelling set in the backdrop of Seattle (which by the way could perhaps have been the perfect choice for a location) attempts to take audience through the emotions of loss and the way people deal with it, through what they call a romantic comedy. But truth be told, although comedy could be found rampant throughout the movie, the romance department could certainly have been done better.

WIthout giving away too much detail..for those of you who actually want to watch the movie let me just start closing this post by saying “For the love of god, if i have to sit through one more movie with a communial clapping scene (where one person starts clapping and rest of the civilization follows)… We might be simple folk out here but please enough with the cliches already.” Producers, Directors and writers in hollywood hear me when i say “PLEASE give the communial clap scene a break (at least for a couple of years..or more!)”.

If ever in some freak way you get to read this…Jennifer Aniston, there might perhaps be more footage that someone decided to edit away but seriously tell someone to get you more air time in the movie/future ones (…hint .. especially towards the end). Would hate to leave a theatre thinking “Mm, now why did they say Jennifer Anniston was in it again”.

Special thanks to the theatre folk, Nielson personnel (these are the guys that do the feedback,demographic analysis what else and what not) for the show.

Owning a MacBookPro is no joke for some of us. First you have to come to terms with the amount of money you are just about to spend on a laptop as opposed to the ones you generally get to use for free most of your days. None the less i did shelve out the insane sum of money because at the end of any amount of research you tend to end at only one conclusion ” An Apple is an Apple!”

But my proud ownership soon turned into clinical frustration as my MBP started to act up. It would freeze for no reason even while doing mundane tasks as simple as opening a browser window or moving the cursor right after boot up. With Apple stores sprouting at every corner i soon found one close to where i live and took it to the Genius bar for diagnosis. A couple of visits later i got my Hard Drive replaced but the problems still continued. Last week i had to wait 30 minutes before the OS let me inside.

So i took my MBP one final time to the store and the nice staff graciously offered to replace my laptop and not only that i got a few coll upgrade that i would’ve got had i waited a month to buy my first MBP. So renewed in faith i think i realized personally why Apple’s following is only set to grow over the coming years. With stylish innovative products and first class service they’ve pretty much got the formula all figured out.

When you walk into a group of people who have worked with nothing but Windows driven machines all your life, don’t expect anything more than a raised eyebrow or two when you unveil your Macbook (pro) from its case. Having recently decided to try out something new and join the Apple bandwagon I decided it was time to join the minority of people who dare use a mac as part of their daily lives and the journey so far has been interesting.

“Oh isn’t he the guy with the Mac?!” – In more traditional organizations (the ones without the new ‘Life 2.0′ crowd) owning a Mac is like having a Rolls Royce Phantom in a parking lot filled with Mustangs and Toyotas. The sheer nature of the car and its uniqueness grabs every ones attention. A boardroom filled with ‘heartless suits’ will stop whatever it is they are doing to see the unveiling of a mac from its laptop bag. A mac is a sure eye catcher. And if you think the cute girl in the other cubicle is giving you the looks, just know “ITS NOT YOU!”. If you own a Mac be prepared to handle all the attention and answer some of the very basic questions “How big a hole did it leave in your wallet?”. “Does it work?” (from a day to day office perspective). And if the attention is not enough, the sheer look out being ‘outdone’ on the faces of everyone else (especially the suits who should in normal circumstances be doing better than you) should be quite satisfying.

“My mommy said “Life is not a bed of roses” : All the attention and love in the world can’t get you a ‘get out of jail free’ card when it comes to getting your work done. Working on a mac required some patience especially if you are a new convert. So be prepared for the odd ball that comes your way. For example a task of connecting to a networked printer can be more painful that trying to retrieve data from a crashed windows system. Going ‘cold turkey’ is not recommended for new converts and it might be a better idea to have a windows installation on your mac (just in case!). Mac still has a long way to go before it will be adopted with arms wide!

Conclusion : Owning a mac can be an exhilarating experience and working with it is a pleasure. However its still a long way to go before corporates start accepting it as a ‘common standard’.

Blogging being such an important reporting platform as it is, many companies have shown a whole lot of affection to bloggers (both famous and not-so-famous alike). For example, when zooomr came out, they offered free pro accounts for all bloggers.

Now Encyclopædia Britannica is offering access to its articles free for a year if you meet their criteria which as per their site goes something like this

Note: This program is intended for people who publish with some regularity on the Internet, be they bloggers, webmasters, or writers. We reserve the right to deny participation to anyone who in our judgment doesn’t qualify.

So if you do happen to post ‘regularly’ on the internet go ahead, register and await the email from Britannica that says “you’ve won gold!”

Almost a year ago, I decided to experiment getting my own domain space after seeing my good friend Clazh get his own space. But after a while it occurred to me that this ‘own space’ business wasn’t all that glamourous after all – especially not for hobby writers such as myself. Therefore I’m back with the pledge that i will never cross over to the dark side!